


About Apples

by jouissant



Category: Life (TV), Standoff
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fruit, M/M, Matt's Commitment Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 15:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6158071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/pseuds/jouissant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt always said his first birthday with Charlie didn’t really count, because it was the day they met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	About Apples

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dancinguniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/gifts).



> Happy belated birthday! I'm not really sure what this is, but I hope you enjoy it.

Matt always said his first birthday with Charlie didn’t really count, because it was the day they met, through a haze of beer and tequila and other questionable choices. Matt would never admit it, but Charlie was just supposed to be one more on the list, the way he materialized out of the dim light of the bar, all red hair and freckles and weird conversation. They had a drink together, then two, then three. Then Matt cut him off halfway through giving the bartender the third degree about the place’s citrus supplier—something about an orange grove Matt didn’t really catch—to ask if he maybe wanted to get out of there. 

Charlie had paused in mid sentence, turned to stare at Matt a moment. “Sure,” he said. He got out his wallet and left a hundred on the bar, set a business card on top of it. “Oranges,” he said to Matt’s questioning look, as if that cleared anything up. 

They went back to Matt’s for a nightcap. They took Charlie’s car. It was sleek and dangerous, and the way he wove it through the slick, last-call streets was doubly so. 

“You sure you’re okay to drive?” Matt said in the first mile. 

“Oh, I always drive like this,” said Charlie blandly.

Matt watched his profile in the glow of passing neon. “You look familiar,” he said. “Have we met?” 

The corner of Charlie’s mouth twitched downwards. “I don’t think so,” he said. 

There would be a moment later on when Matt would pull up short, think oh, Charlie _Crews_ , and know instantly to keep his revelation to himself. Because it was there if you looked, wasn’t it, in the tight set of Charlie’s body, in the way he smiled with everything but his eyes. Matt wondered what it took to get a real smile out of him, and wondered also at the part of him that already cared to try. 

Charlie seized an apple from the crisper drawer when Matt got the beer out of the fridge. He bought apples sometimes when he felt momentarily bad about the lack of fiber in his diet; the one Charlie was eating had been kicking around in the drawer at least a month. Not what Matt would pick for a midnight snack, but okay. As Matt watched Charlie took a neat bite, made a face, went over to the trash can and spat. 

“Problem?” Matt said. 

“Can I give you some advice?” Charlie said, wiping his mouth with a paper towel. “People think apples keep forever in the refrigerator. They don’t.” 

“I’ll, uh, take that under advisement.” 

“They get mealy.” 

“Okay. Here’s your beer.” 

“Okay,” Charlie said. When he took the bottle from Matt their fingers brushed. 

“Sorry I fed you a mealy apple,” Matt said. 

Charlie was watching him, lower lip caught between his teeth. “You didn’t feed it to me,” he said. “I had a choice, and I made the wrong one.” He held up his beer.

“Cheers,” Matt said, knocking the neck of his bottle against Charlie’s. He came over and leaned against the counter next to him, sliding one hand onto the granite level with Charlie’s waist. “You make a lot of wrong choices?” Matt asked. 

Charlie shrugged. “I haven’t always been in a position to make any,” he said. “Choosing wrong now and then’s not so bad, on balance. Especially if we’re talking about apples.” He took a long swig of his beer, set the bottle down. He was staring at Matt’s mouth. “Are we talking about apples?” 

Matt kissed him then, which wasn’t especially equivocal on the subject. Charlie didn’t seem to mind. 

***

Matt’s second birthday with Charlie was significant just by virtue of having occurred at all. That first night they kissed up against the counter for a long time before stumbling to bed; Matt flipped the lamp on and Charlie winced, leaned over him and shut it off again. 

(Months later he’d tell Matt that in solitary they left the lights burning 24 hours a day, that he’d press his fingers against his lids as hard as he could, blot the white-hot glare of the fluorescents to a bloody maroon. You could hide in the dark, he’d said, and he’d been very drunk and it had been very late and Matt hadn’t known what to do besides kiss him on the shoulder and stare into the shadows and think of all the places Charlie might go to hide.)

They ate breakfast together in the morning on the way back to Matt’s car, and when Charlie dropped him in the parking lot of the bar Matt had fully expected that to be that. But then they’d said goodbye and both of them had stood around a beat too long, and then Charlie took out another business card and held it out to Matt between middle- and forefinger. It wasn’t an LAPD card; it was the same card he’d given the bartender, just his name in block print, a phone number and an address in Orange County. 

“Guess I’ll see you around,” said Matt.

“Honeycrisps,” Charlie said. “That’s my recommendation.” 

“Yeah,” Matt said. “Okay. I’ll have ‘em for next time.” 

Which he did, because there was a next time, and a time after that, and then a whole string of nights when they met out at some bar or other and drank and ended up in Matt’s kitchen, and Matt bought Charlie Honeycrisps and Pippins and Mt. Fujis and other kinds of fruit besides, plums and cherries and weird shit like dragonfruit and durian and jackfruit, which wasn’t really fruit at all. 

“Vegans like it,” Charlie said. “You can cook it up like pulled pork.” 

“Jesus Christ,” said Matt. 

Charlie must have liked something about the fruit, or about Matt, because all those next times spun out into months, until before Matt quite knew what was happening he was sitting on the couch in Charlie’s spare living room after work watching bad TV and listening to Charlie say: 

“Your birthday’s coming up.” 

“Huh? No.” 

“It is,” Charlie said. “Which means—" 

“This is terrible,” said Matt to the TV. “This is—why are we even watching this? There’s got to be something better on.” 

He grabbed the remote and got up from the couch to stand in front of the set and jab at the menu button. His back was to Charlie, which was better, and he thought furiously that if Charlie even thought about so much as breathing the word _anniversary_ , Matt would—well, he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d do. Go shoot up a car, maybe. 

“I thought about having some people over,” Charlie said from behind him. 

“People?” 

Matt didn’t really have friends, was the thing. Matt had work people, and he’d had Emily, and now he had…whatever this was with Charlie. Tonight was Friday. They were going to order a pizza, Matt thought helplessly. Order a pizza and eat it on the couch and maybe Ted would show up, and Matt would be torn between liking Ted—liking the concept of Ted, liking that Charlie had someone in his life who understood its singular defining experience—and wishing Ted would fuck off back to the garage apartment or guest cottage or whatever and stop beaming at them like a kindergarten teacher whose class just learned to read. They’d finish the pizza and Ted would leave and sooner or later he and Charlie would start kissing and go upstairs and fuck and fall asleep and wake up to another day of whatever this was. 

Matt’s birthday was coming up.

“People,” Charlie said. 

“Like Ted?” 

“Like Ted,” Charlie said. “And Reese and Tidwell. And Rachel. I mean, I can invite Rachel. She probably won’t come. We’re kind of old and uncool, I guess. And it’s your birthday, so you’re only getting older and less cool. Why are you still pushing that button?” 

“That’s true,” Matt said. “And I’m not pushing any buttons.” He dropped the remote into Charlie’s lap and flopped back down onto the couch. “You can’t invite Ted over,” he said. “He lives here.” 

Charlie wedged his beer between his knees, and took Matt’s hand with the one that had been holding it. His palm was cold against Matt’s, and Matt was strangely cognizant of the feel of Charlie’s hand in his, of the way their fingers slotted together. Charlie leaned back against the back of the couch and gave Matt an even look. His eyes were doing that on-a-clear-day-you-can-see-forever thing, all watery, and it wasn’t really fair. 

“Are we talking about apples?” 

Matt groaned. “No.” 

“What are we talking about?” 

“I don’t know,” Matt said. “Me being an idiot, probably.” 

Charlie frowned down at their hands like he was working something out. “I like this a lot,” he said. He stopped, shook his head, began again. “I didn’t always think—I mean, everything is different now.” 

(And Matt knew without having to ask that he meant different like Pelican Bay different, like the knife he kept in his pocket, pretended he didn’t keep on the nightstand. Different like the place a bullet tried its best to tear through the softest parts of him. Matt put his mouth on that place sometimes, and it struck him then that maybe Charlie also meant that kind of different.)

“I like it too,” Matt said, on the off chance he was right.

***

Rachel did come to Matt’s birthday party, and he was flattered, even though he thought her presence was probably more of a Charlie-and-Rachel thing than anything to do with him. But she gave him a present, her boyfriend’s band’s CD, which Matt thanked her profusely for and then hid from Charlie to forestall the way he’d probably analyze the whole thing track by track listening for backwards Satanic messages, or evidence they’d secretly eloped to Vegas, or whatever. 

(“I think this is about drugs, Matt. Doesn’t he know I’m a cop?”) 

Reese came too, and brought Tidwell, who Matt liked just by virtue of his also being on the outside of the Crews-and-Reese show. Tidwell was the kind of guy you could give the nod to and then stand beside while you drank a beer and he drank a soda as a courtesy to Reese but also didn’t judge you for drinking a beer, or five because it was your birthday party and your—and Charlie threw you a birthday party and you were starting to think it might mean you’re…something. 

“So—" Tidwell jerked his chin in the direction of Charlie, who was hovering while Rachel showed Reese something on her phone. Pictures of the boyfriend, by the shade of pink Charlie’s face had turned. “—How’s this whole thing work, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Matt said. “How’s your whole thing work?” 

Tidwell shrugged. “Point.” 

“I mean, probably with less fruit,” said Matt. 

“I don’t know,” said Tidwell. “She got on me for buying Red Delicious apples the other day. Said they were—" 

“Mealy,” Matt said, before he could catch himself. 

The resulting look Tidwell gave him was equal parts pitying and delighted, so Matt gave up and excused himself to get another beer. Whatever, he thought. Reese was objective evidence that you didn’t have to be sleeping with Charlie Crews to know Red Delicious apples were the worst. 

A couple hours and a couple beers later he said as much to Reese. 

“Sleeping with him,” she said. “That’s what you’re doing?” 

He shrugged. She just shook her head and stared ahead into the dark. 

They were out by the pool. Charlie said if you went outside about now and waited and were really quiet you could hear the coyotes in the canyons out back, so that was what they were doing. Theoretically, anyway. 

“The coyotes are a ruse,” Reese said.

“Oh?” 

“I mean, maybe you can hear coyotes. I don’t know. But there’s a cake. I thought I should warn you.” 

“Oh,” Matt said. 

“Give it like five minutes, they’ll bring it out and we’ll sing. It’s an expensive fucking cake, too; it’s from this place in Beverly Hills.” 

“He talked to you about the cake?” 

“I think he did research.” 

Matt scrubbed a hand down his face. 

“Sure you’re just sleeping together, Flannery?” 

Before he could formulate an answer, the patio door opened. And sure enough, out came Rachel holding a goddamn layer cake, Ted and Tidwell gloating behind her. The cake had way too many fucking candles on it, and there in the glow of all of them was Charlie smiling a real smile, small and crooked and maybe just for Matt. Charlie didn’t sing, just stood there and watched while the others did, off-key, and when Matt couldn’t stand it anymore and waved them off and blew the candles out he didn’t make a wish, except maybe for Charlie to smile at him like that again without so many people around. 

***

The party was over. Matt was still a little drunk. Charlie was on top of him with one hand on Matt’s face, thumb running back and forth over his bottom lip. 

Charlie never talked when they had sex, the same way he always turned the lights off. There was a time when it used to bug Matt, but that was back in the beginning when he’d felt too bad to bring it up, too aware of who exactly this man in his bed was, and by the time he relaxed enough to broach the subject he found he’d mostly gotten used to it. And anyway, your eyes adjusted; and anyway, Charlie breathed and gasped and sometimes said Matt’s name, and anyway, what else did you really need to talk about? He didn’t seem to mind when Matt talked, so Matt talked for both of them. 

Tonight the bathroom light was on, and that was something. Matt could see at least half of Charlie’s face, could even see colors, not the washed out sepia of the streetlights that filtered in when they did this in Matt’s bed, because Matt lived in an apartment in West Hollywood that was like the Exxon Valdez of light pollution. He could use that reference; Charlie would get it. It was around the late 90s or so where things started getting a little fuzzy, and God, it had been awhile since Matt had thought—really thought— about Charlie _in there_ and when he did it welled up in him like a wave and made him want to hit people and break things and are you sure you’re just sleeping together, Flannery? Are you _sure?_

“Hey,” Charlie said quietly. 

Matt blinked up at him. 

“Where are you?” Charlie asked. 

Matt rolled his eyes. As soon as he did it he thought better of the bathroom light. “I could ask you the same thing, when we do this.” 

Charlie gave him a look then, not a smile but still somehow the wistful cousin of the one out by the pool, a look that lived in his eyes and maybe somewhere around the right corner of his mouth. “I—I’m here,” he said. “I’m nowhere else.” 

Matt screwed his eyes shut then, just in case. 

Charlie drank this awful tea sometimes— Matt thought it started as a joke, that Reese bought him a box, but he was pretty sure by now that Charlie kept buying it, probably because it was good tea but probably also for the zen pabulum written on the little tags affixed to every bag. It was expensive, and he bought it at a markup from the same place he bought his beloved blended coffee drinks, which were horrifying until Matt remembered that Charlie was still living in that forgotten halcyon time when the Frappuccino was not yet entirely ubiquitous. Anyway, when he wasn’t drinking those he drank this tea, and a couple weeks back when Matt was over and had a scratchy throat he made a cup for himself. He filled the mug with water and nuked it in the microwave, and after he took it out and cursed at the way the mug burned his fingers he dropped the teabag in and went away to let it steep. 

When he came back, he saw it: floating on the surface of the twig-colored liquid was the ever-present tag, and on it the saccharine message: _Love is an elevation of the self._

He was pretty sure he groaned aloud, fished the teabag out and dumped it in the trash, but now, tonight, he found himself thinking about it again, the words springing unbidden to his mind emblazoned in Papyrus or whatever the fuck. Charlie loomed over him against the ceiling, looking vaguely concerned. _I’m nowhere else_ , he’d said, and Matt wanted to laugh in the same heartbroken way he did about the apples, or about Ted, or about the lights staying off and the knife and everything else, every small thing about Charlie, every little foothold by which he clawed his way up. The way he was always clawing, and probably always would be. 

So, okay. Maybe elevation wasn’t quite the meditative float Matt had imagined, or Charlie had wanted. Maybe it was getting on top of things however you could, and if you kept the lights off and cleared your mind and tried so hard not to be anywhere else, because all you wanted to be was here—maybe that was love. 

*** 

When they were finished it was the middle of the night. They were sweaty and gross and they lay there in the dark until they cooled off, and then Matt went into the bathroom and cleaned up, came out and put his boxers back on. 

“Are you leaving?” Charlie asked, something in his voice implying this wouldn’t be entirely surprising. Matt would’ve been offended if it hadn’t been so understandable.

“No,” Matt said. “I’m just hungry.” 

“Oh,” Charlie said, and got out of the bed. 

They padded downstairs to the kitchen. Matt went first, because now he could find his way down the corkscrew stairway even in the dark. Charlie came stumbling behind, his hands on Matt’s waist. He was naked, because you could get away with it in your own house, erstwhile roommates notwithstanding. On the kitchen counter was a bowl of apples that shone softly in the blue glow of the microwave clock, and in the refrigerator was the remains of Matt’s birthday cake. 

He took it out and tore straight in without bothering to slice it.


End file.
